Numerical simulation study on the crack propagation of conglomerate

The conglomerate reservoir is rich in oil and gas reserves; however, the gravel's mechanical properties and laws are difficult to gain through laboratory experiments, which furthermore constrain the hydraulic fracturing design. To analyse the failure law of conglomerate, we simulated the uniaxial compression test based on discrete element software PFC2D and analysed the effect of different cementation strength, gravel content and gravel geometry on the rock deformation and failure characteristics. Results show that (i) as the cementation strength decreases, the compressive strength and elasticity modulus both reduce clearly, while the crack shapes get more complex and the critical value is 0.3; (ii) as the gravel content increases, the conglomerate strength first decreases then increases under the influences of cracks bypassing gravels; cementation strength and gravel content of the conglomerate both contribute to the increase in local additional stress, which leads to a series of changes in crack shapes and mechanical properties of the conglomerate. Based on the above research, the conglomerate strength and crack shapes after failure are relatively complex due to the common influence of cementation strength and gravel content. The gravel edge crack caused by stress concentration is the micro-mechanism that affects the conglomerate mechanical properties.